


i'll see you on the road

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5941170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She pulls the flap aside and steps in. Bellamy’s standing by his bed and at the sight of her, his shoulders drop slightly, as if he’d actually been prepared to fight someone. As if he’s not planning on fighting her.</p><p>wherein clarke and bellamy come together before they come apart (set somewhere around the middle of s2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll see you on the road

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand somehow I tripped and fell down the rabbit hole that is Bellamy/Clarke. I'd like to thank Malin for holding my hand through the actual show and through writing this, to Selma for encouragement and read-through and to The 100, I suppose, for inspiring me to write something.
> 
> This is set during S2, post!Finn and before Bellamy leaves for Mount Weather. Any and all mistakes are my own. Hope you enjoy it. ♥

For all the knowledge and intelligence that Clarke Griffin is known for, there are many things she still doesn’t understand.

Firstly, she doesn’t know more than a few words of Trigerdasleng. It annoys her, to see Octavia adapt to it so quickly, the ease with which she curls her lips around the Germanic sounds while she stands there, feeling a fool. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, and not a pleasant one at that. (She forgets that Octavia has Lincoln, whispering softly in her ear at night.)

Secondly, the way her mother acts and talks to her and the way it makes Clarke feel in return. Before the Ark crashed and what was left of _their people_ found them, the 100 had managed without them. They were good, at times, and Clarke knows that they exceeded every expectation, that she did her best and that for the 100, it was enough. But Abby refuses to acknowledge what Clarke has learned from being on the ground, from being a leader, from being _on her own_. She babies her and dismisses her at once, and Clarke can never stand it for more than a minute at a time.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, she doesn’t understand Bellamy Blake. Or rather she does, but she doesn’t understand why or how that came to be.

She remembers the hatred. The frustration. She remembers the way she would gnash her teeth as he walked around with his hips jutted out, face proud and always challenging. At times she still feels it bubbling beneath the surface, as he bites back before he’s had the chance to think, picking fights where he can find them. He’s reckless and arrogant, but he’s also the one she trusts most of all.

“Hey, princess, you okay?” His voice is deep, eyes dark and searching. There’s a cut along the bridge of his freckled nose and another down his left cheekbone. The sweat on his forehead glistens in the light of his torch and just before he gets the chance to draw his eyebrows together in that concerned frown of his, she nods, inhales. Not even annoyed at the nickname anymore.

“I’m fine.”

Bellamy looks as if he doesn’t believe her (knows her all too well), but lets it go, nods curtly and marshes on through the dark woods. They don’t have time to stand around and try to resolve anything as complicated as their combined issues and they both know it.

It’s past midnight and with what little light the moon casts through the trees, Clarke can just barely make out her own hand and the sword held there. It’s just the two of them, on their way back from Lexa’s camp. They’ve been planning what to do, how to move forward. The Mountain Men are too powerful to attack without strategy and Clarke won’t  risk any more lives. She’s too selfish to put another massacre on her conscience.

“You’re thinking too much again,” Bellamy says and he sounds annoyed, tired, defeated.

“Not thinking is what got us here to begin with, and if I’m not thinking, no one is,” she bites back, her patience worn down by fighting Lexa and her men all day, arguing that they need to think, that they need a plan to rescue their friends. She can’t be too poisonous with them without risking another war, but she sure as hell won’t take it from Bellamy without a fight.

“That’s not what I meant, Clarke.” She shrinks back at the sound of her own name in his clipped voice and, for a moment, considers stopping to stomp on the ground and scream, like a child. She wants Lexa and the Grounders to hear, wants the Mountain Men to fear what anger has made her.

Instead, more scared of herself than they will ever be, she walks straight past her companion and for the rest of the journey back to camp Jaha, neither of them says a word.

-

Raven still won’t look her in the eye. Clarke tells her what needs doing and Raven does it, grudgingly, but she never speaks more than necessary. If Clarke tries to express concern, or gratitude, she limps off and whenever she does, Clarke imagines Finn walking beside her. He’s gone, she reminds herself, but continues to see him as if he were there.

She refuses to talk to Abby about it. If she did, her mother would only draw parallels that Clarke is better off without. Raven, the only one who knew Finn as well as she did, is out of the question. As to everyone else, they’re still stuck inside the mountain, and Clarke can’t get them out until her head is clear enough that she can come up with a plan that would actually work.

It’s a vicious circle.

And that’s how she ends up outside Bellamy’s tent, after not having spoken to or seen him since they came back from Lexa’s two nights ago. He’s been too busy taking orders from Kane, helping people set up stronger housing, hunting for food and training in-between.

Clarke stops with her hand on the plastic flap, thinking about how much he’s grown, that he’s come so far that he’s willing to take orders to keep peace. A couple of weeks ago, that wouldn’t happen. Bellamy refuses to acknowledge or talk about what he’s done for these people, for her, but she sees the way the others look at him. The admiration and respect that she so often recognises to match her own feelings as of late.

The ground is wet and cold beneath her worn-down shoes and the stars above her are harsh and bright, forming constellations she doesn’t recognise from this part of the universe. She used to dream about how the sky would look from earth, the moon such a strange thing to look at from the ground up.

“Whoever’s out there, either walk away or get in before I shoot you,” comes his voice from within the tent.

She pulls the flap aside and steps in. Bellamy’s standing by his bed and at the sight of her, his shoulders drop slightly, as if he’d actually been prepared to fight someone. As if he’s not planning on fighting her.

There’s an electric torch hanging from the ceiling and it reflects off of the red material, filling the space with a soft, warm glow. She can smell the grass from the outside, the soap Monty cooked up before they were kidnapped, can see that Bellamy’s hair still damp from having washed it. He looks safe yet more vulnerable than he ever does outside these plastic walls.

Clarke marches right up to him and into his arms, like she had when he first made it back to the camp. Just like then, it takes him a moment to understand what’s happening and when he does, his arms come around to pull her in tight, holding her close to his chest.

“Thought we’d been through this already.” Clarke can hear the feigned smirk in his voice and shakes her head violently, gripping his back tighter. For once, she’s happy that he’s acting nonchalant, even if only because it’s familiar. When she doesn’t let go, he tenses back up again, and pushes her away to hold her at arm’s length, his face sober and tight.

“Do you need something?” Bellamy’s hands feel warm through the thin fabric of her top; the same one she had when they first landed on earth. “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me. Why are you here? Did something happen?”

At first, she doesn’t know what to say.

“No, Bellamy, nothing happened,” she starts, interrupting herself as the anxiety rises in her chest, “except for how I burned an entire army and some of our friends alive. How the rest of them are inside a mountain with no way to get out, waiting to be used and hung up to dry, and we’re not there, Bellamy, I left th-”

He grabs her face between his hands and stares her right in the eye. “No, Clarke, _don’t. We_ did that. All of it. We decided to do that and you went through with it because you had to. What the Mountain Men do isn’t your responsibility and you can’t save everyone on your own.” Delivered through his teeth, the statement is no-nonsense. It’s harsh and right and true. “Now stop acting like it.”

“I killed Finn,” she whispers. It’s the only time she’s ever said it out loud. Realisation dawns on Bellamy’s face and Clarke shuts her eyes to keep from crying. It doesn’t help.

Calloused fingertips run along the tops of her cheeks, tears swallowed by the already swollen skin as she cries for the first time since she kissed him, strung up on that pole. It’s not Bellamy’s weight to carry, but she doesn’t know how to do it on her own anymore.

Clarke feels him lean down to put his forehead to hers. Only when they touch does she realise that she’s trembling, breath harsh and coming in gulps as she weeps. Had it been any other time, the intimacy would have surprised her. As it is now, she can only be thankful that he doesn’t kick her out.

“You saved him.” His hands on her face keep her from physically protesting. “They would have killed him, eighteen times over. You heard Lincoln. You saved him Clarke, and you saved us.” She grabs onto his wrists, holding tight and feeling the ridges from the many times he’s been bound, lines not yet healed.

“Clarke, listen to me.” She opens her eyes to find him still looking at her, feels his breath on her face as he speaks. “Whatever you need, tell me and I’ll do it. We’re going to get through this.” He doesn’t say _together_ , but she hears it as it hangs in the air between them. She understands where he’s coming from, would tell him the same thing, but doesn’t understand what she’s done to deserve it.

They stand there, quiet, until eventually Clarke’s breathing evens out. She has no idea how long it takes. Outside there are voices and movements, but none that stop to interrupt or notice them. He’s got goosebumps and it’s her fault, bringing the cold in with her.

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave now, let you rest,” she starts and pulls away so that they’re no longer touching, letting go of his wrists as his hands fall to his sides. His face is unreadable, but he watches her intently as she nearly stumbles on one of his discarded shoes. Because he’s Bellamy, he doesn’t ask her to elaborate, or question why she’s come to him of all people - he just lets her go.

“And you? Are you going to get some sleep?” _No,_ Clarke thinks, _I won’t. But I also won’t keep you up any longer_. His back looks stiff and tense and he’s been working just as hard as her, if not harder. There are bags beneath his eyes that aren’t from crying and now that she feels more if not entirely like herself again, she stops to wonder how much he’s been sleeping. It’s her turn to walk up to him this time, frowning.

“Bellamy..? You’re not sick, are you?” He sighs, mutters something inaudible, and her face hardens immediately. He knows that he’s supposed to tell her if he’s been feeling feverish or fatigued. Living the way they are, it’s too risky to ignore any signs of illness. She puts the inside of her wrist to his head to feel his temperature and once she has, she scowls at him.

“You’re too hot. Have you been drinking properly?”

“Always got to be the hero, huh?” He rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m fine, I just need to some decent shut-eye and I’ll be peachy by morning, don’t worry, princess.” As if the past half an hour didn’t happen, frustration coils her in her stomach. He’s an _idiot_. Looking around them, she reaches for the closest water bottle she can find and thrusts it at his chest, furiously wiping away any leftover wetness from underneath her eyes.

“Drink, go to bed, and shut up.” Her voice is back to the one she uses to carry out orders.

It seems for a second as if he’s going to argue. He stands still, facing her straight on, jaw ticking... but then changes his mind at the look on her face. He drinks the whole bottle in one go before throwing it aside, raising his eyebrows. When she doesn’t speak or move, he shrugs his shoulders, pulling his shirt off and backing towards the bed with his arms raised, as if to say ‘ _happy now?_ ’.

Clarke’s still there, looking at him, by the time he’s lost his pants and crawled into bed. She realises he’s only doing it to indulge her, to make her feel like she’s capable of taking care of _someone_ , but can’t help but feel calmer when he does. Once he’s settled, hands tucked behind his head, she hesitates, unsure of what to do now that he’s done what she asked and more.

She drops her gaze to her shoes and collects herself. She’s had enough breakdowns for one night. She moves to the opening and turns back around just as she’s about to leave.

“Good night, Bellamy.” Their eyes meet and his face seems to soften at the non-existent bite to her voice. Barely audible and with whatever emotion left from earlier, she says: “Thank you.”

“Whatever, princess.”

-

“You trust him.” It’s not a question, but a statement.

Clarke looks up to meet Lexa’s eyes. She doesn’t give anything away, but tilts her head slightly to the side and raises her eyebrows, waiting for Clarke’s reply. _It’s not that simple_ , she wants to say and knows how weak it would sound, how it does nothing to explain anything.

“I do. That doesn’t mean I want to send him inside that god-awful mountain.”

“It was his idea. If you trust him, you should let him go.” Lexa purses her lips and straightens her stance. Instinctively Clarke mirrors her, shaking her head from side to side. She knows that both Bellamy and Lexa are right, that it’s their best shot. That doesn’t stop her from refusing.

The tent is warm and filled with golden light, flimsy textiles doing a poor job of keeping any of it out. Clarke can feel the breeze as it wraps around her ankles, can smell the smoke from the fires and hear how the guards outside argue with words she doesn’t know the meaning of. In here, it’s easy to forget that they’re making decisions that will affect all of it. That it’s their responsibility, on them to decide who lives and who dies.

In frustration, she turns away from Lexa, looking at the map sprawled across the makeshift table to their side. “And what if he dies?”

“Then he died fighting; a hero’s death. He would die for you, Clarke. He would die for all of them. As would you. As would I, for my people.” In an unexpected showcase of intimacy, Lexa puts her hand on Clarke’s shoulder. “This is war. And it is not we who decide who lives and who dies, but the people who go to war with us. You are not the only one who has been saved at the cost of someone else.”

Lexa’s voice is strong but her hand slowly falls from Clarke’s shoulder, for the first time hesitant. Clarke looks up to see her pain reflected in the eyes of the great commander before they close off again, determined.

“Love is weakness when it hinders the great. You must let your second decide for himself if he is a price worth paying.”

-

When they make their way back to camp Jaha the sun is still out, the trees casting long shadows on the ground as she walks. Bellamy walks next to her, his gun out just in case, and they talk about Miller’s plan to build cabins for winter. They talk as if the future is already set and safe, and it’s nice. It feels a bit like how things were in the beginning, when the only people they had to consult were each other.

“Remember when the greatest threat we faced was Murphy?” she asks and wonders briefly what happened to him. Bellamy chuckles, a brief, dark sound, and it’s not exactly happy but it’s something other than the intensely serious thing that he’s had going since he came back with Octavia. He’s always been an observer, but lately he’s been a quiet one.

“I remember thinking that you were the greatest threat, princess.” Clarke furrows her eyebrows.

She remembers how he would stare her down, question her every decision and how if she did something wrong, he was the first to tell her. (She doesn’t remember how he listened to her every argument, trusting her opinion once he’d been made aware of what it was, why she did what she did.)

He licks his charred lower lip, keeps his eyes on the road ahead and grins. “It’s not that I thought you were going to kill me, exactly; not that I doubt you could have. I mean that you were a threat to what I was trying to do, who I was trying to be. The fucking wristbands, you know? Murphy was a jerk, yeah, but I could control him. You walked around the place with all these ideas and orders and people followed them and there was nothing I could do to stop you.”

“You were an asshole.” That actually makes him laugh, and Clarke feels her heart swell at the sound of it because _this, this is Bellamy_. He’ll keep on fighting for what he believes in until the day he dies. He’ll grow and change until the end of time and never lose hope. He smiles, a small tentative thing aimed at the sun and the woods to their right, and doesn’t realise that he’s the one that keeps everybody going and not the other way around.

“Never expected me to be the one to your right, did you?” Bellamy asks. They’ve almost reached camp now and Clarke can hear the shouting from people working together, can see Octavia and Lincoln training just outside the fences.

“No, I didn’t,” she admits truthfully, “but I never thought you were going to kill me either.” He nods, smile gone again, but he walks straighter now, prouder than a minute ago. She looks at him, the curl of his lips, the dried blood and follows the lines of his healing wounds.

They’re not best friends. She doesn’t allow herself to even consider the possibility of other feelings; the way she felt about Finn, the _something_ she felt when Lexa looked at her in the tent during the short moment her guard was down. They’re not definable, but the thought of losing him hurts more than any spear or bullet ever could.

“I’m taking Lincoln with me when I go to Mount Weather. He knows the terrain and how to get me in.” He doesn’t say that with Lincoln there he’ll have some sort of protection, but that’s what Clarke hears. The top of their arms brush together between them, the fabric of Bellamy’s jacket warm through the material of Clarke’s own. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Clarke doesn’t protest. When they get back to camp Bellamy starts going through the plan from start to finish with Kane and the rest.

-

After having dinner with Lincoln and Octavia, Clarke watches their retreating backs as they make their way to their tent, holding hands. Octavia looks over her shoulder and through the dark, Clarke meets the steel-grey of her eyes and _knows_ , with a tug to the stomach, what it is she’s trying to say.

Bellamy’s tent smells exactly the same the second time around, but the light has been turned off. It’s late. She should let him sleep, let him prepare for the journey ahead. He jumps when she enters, unannounced, and stands shirtless in the dark. “Clarke?”

“You’re going to be careful. You’ll make sure Lincoln is always a step behind you, and you’ll wear appropriate clothing. You won’t try and save anyone while in the tunnels, and once you’re in, you figure out how to turn off the fog. You contact us, and you stay low.” Her voice is tight and low as she stands, paralysed, a few feet away from him.

“I know the plan. I came up with it,” he says, turning his back to her and splashing his face with some water. She takes him in, the smooth line of his back up to his strong shoulders. He’s surprisingly untouched, save for the slightly raised scar in his right side, just between his sixth and seventh rib. “Did you want something?” He’s annoyed, his voice rough.

She unlocks her legs, moving forwards, putting her cold fingertips to the top of his shoulders and tilting her head down to rest between his shoulder blades. He tenses, surprised at the touch and the cold and the sudden confidence. Her heart stutters.

“Clarke…” Resignation lines the sound of her name. She shakes her head and he turns around, her hands on his chest now, equally warm to match the shade of his skin, even when he spends his days tucked up in thick clothes, their earthly armour.

“I can’t lose you too,” she says, looking up at him with her jaw set and her eyes hard. He squints her at her, assessing her state of mind, and puts his hands on her lower back. She shivers at the touch but her anger doesn’t falter. She can’t get herself to word her fear, instead goes with, “If you get yourself hurt I’ll make you regret it.”

“Getting myself killed really isn’t part of the plan,” he murmurs and she feels it rumbling in his chest, the palms of her hands splayed out to feel his heartbeat, feel him breathe as his lungs expand and deflate. She closes her eyes at the sound and he pulls her in closer.

“Anyway - I thought you didn’t care, princess. That you were being weak.” The bitterness seeps into his voice as he refers to what she said earlier, when he asked her about what made her change her mind. Clarke opens her eyes, laughs; a watery, bleak vibration that makes him squint again. She shakes her head, ridiculed, embarrassed, _weak_ and kisses him for the first time in favour of a reply.

At first, he just stands there, lets her move her hands up to his neck and press their mouths together awkwardly, tightly, fingers curling through his hair. She can feel the ridges of the cut in his lower lip, can feel his breath on her face. She also feels it when his hands grip her hips, when he parts his lips and starts kissing her back.

She never did give herself the chance to imagine what kissing Bellamy would be like. She realised that he did it a lot, in the beginning, knew that when he emerged half naked from the drop shift it wasn’t because he’d been sleeping. She thought about it, once or twice, when a bruise showed up on the side of his neck or by some girl’s jaw, but she never put herself into the equation.

His pupils, hardly visible to begin with, are shot, and they’re panting by the time they pull apart to look at each other. She kisses him again, softer, and he returns it, tentative but thorough, sucking on her lower lip before pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth, her chin, down the side of her jaw and neck. Unhurried. Caring, as he always is.

“You need to come back,” she reminds him as she takes a step back, shedding her jacket and top as he watches her. Bellamy nods, swallows thickly and follows. She sits down on his bed, leaving room for him by her side, and pulls her jeans down. It’s not sexy or seductive; it’s shedding her skin, laying her cards on the table, being open and vulnerable. Her skin prickles with awareness as he sits down closer to the top of the bed. From behind her, he unclasps her bra, burying his face in her neck and nosing at her hair.

It’s as if a switch has been flicked, the tension so palpable she can hardly breathe. Things are so… _much_ , when it comes to Bellamy Blake. It’s fucking hard, at times, when they yell at each other from across the room, when they argue about whatever decision Kane is trying to get them to agree to. But _this_. _This_ is easy.

They lie down, facing each other, and this time he’s the one who kisses her. He rolls on top of her, elbows on opposite sides of her head, shielding her from the rest of the world. She reaches beneath his arms to grab at his back.

She doesn’t know what he’s thinking, whether this means to him what it means to her (not that she knows that either).

“This isn’t a consolation price, right?” Bellamy asks as if he’s read her mind, leaving no place for her to hide, no vague answers to use to keep herself from getting hurt. She shakes her head and pulls him in by the back of his head to kiss him again.

“It’s a promise, Bellamy.” At the sound of his name, he relaxes, melts into her so that their bodies are pressed together by the weight of him. He traces her body with his hands, memorising the curve of her hip, the swell of her chest, the pale skin that keeps him from digging into her bones as if he weren’t already there, every memory of him buried deep.

The tick in his jaw, the stray curl by his neck, the fire in his eyes. The feel of his hands, big and warm, the amused smile he tries to tuck away in the corner of his mouth. She knows it all by heart.  


He’s a good kisser. He cups her cheek with one big hand, runs his calloused thumb along her cheekbone, pays attention to what makes her breath hitch. It doesn’t take him long to figure out that she likes a bit of teeth, a bit of pressure, but he mumbles something that sounds a lot like ‘ _of course_ ’ when he does and Clarke’s sure what she feels pressed to her body is the beginning of a smile.

She notices how he exhales rougher when she scratches down his back, when she tugs a little at his hair as he sucks down on her pulse. They work, surprisingly well, for two people who have fought to stay apart for so long.

They stay like that, kissing, tracing, feeling, until their breathing slows down, making way for an oddly intimate calm. Clarke maneuvers them so that he rolls off of her, presses her palm to his back to make him lie on his side. Once he has, confused, she curls up behind him, chest to back and skin to skin, tucking her toes in between his calves as he pulls the blankets over them.

Her heart is beating too fast. She traces the outlines of his shoulder blades with the tip of a cold finger to calm down. She draws the constellations she remembers from space on his skin, feels him shiver at a particularly rough scratch of her nail. She can’t see his face but right now she doesn’t care, content to know that he’s safe, that she can still protect him.

“Never pegged you for the clingy type, Griffin,” Bellamy mumbles and she can hear the sleepiness hidden there, drowsing off as he curls an arm beneath his head to make himself more comfortable. It’s a defence mechanism, pushing her away with smart comments. Clarke refuses to acknowledge it - won’t have him pull away when they only have a few hours before he has to leave. She puts an arm around his chest, putting her open palm rest on his sternum.

They’ll talk when he gets back, she decides as his hand comes down on top of hers, pulling her tighter to him. He might not love her. They might not make it through the war.

She presses her lips softly to the bend where his neck meets his shoulder, and whispers, “May we meet again.”

She can feel it as he breathes. “Just sleep, Clarke.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Ryn Weaver's "Traveling Song" and you can find me on tumblr [here](http://elloquente.tumblr.com)! Feel free to ask me about anything or tell me what you thought. ♥


End file.
